Adherence to infection control standards by nurses in a specific hospital in Manzini, Swaziland

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to develop practice guidelines to promote adherence to infection control standards in a specific hospital in Manzini, Swaziland. It was a qualitative, descriptive and explanatory design which utilised an in-depth unstructured face to face interview data collection method done to nine (9) registered nurse participants. A qualitative content analysis was conducted to identify prominent themes and patterns, smaller units of data were named and coded according to the contents they represented. Four themes emerged from data analysis, they were; working environment for nurses, nurse’s descriptions of infection control standards, nurse’s challenges regarding adherence to infection control standards and nurses expressed needs. The findings revealed possible contributing factors to non-adherence to infection control standards by participants and therefore denoted to a serious need for development of general guidelines to promote adherence to infection control standards, these guidelines were presented.